Saturday, 30 June 2012

I stayed in a holiday flat in Falkenberg. The basement of a lovely couple's house. We chatted while I paid the pittance the night had cost.

I mentioned the castle. The magnificent castle on the rock. "Would you like to see inside it?", the husband, a tanned and nimble 50-something, asks.

"I thought it wasn't open to the public?"

"It isn't. But my brother's the mayor. He has the key. We can pick it up on the way there."

This sounded good. I cautiously said about being in town for Zoigl.

"I know who's got the key to the brewery, too. Would you like to look in there as well?"

See the advantages of a small town? Everyone literally knows everyone else.

My host is remarkably well-informed about Zoigl. 20 years ago the tradition had almost died out in Falkenberg. Only three families still brewed and there was talk of giving up the communal brewery. Luckily, they didn't. Interest revived and now there are around 30 brewers, though only 3 sell their beer. The others brew for their own consumption.

As we enter the brewery, he tells me that they don't brew in the summer. The wort won't cool quickly enough when the night-time temperature is over 15º C. Autumn and spring are the most favourable seasons, brewing-wise.

The equipment is charmingly rustic, with the exception of the stainless steel cooler (coolship). That was installed pretty recently. The copper is fired directly by a wood-burning furnace. All the machinery is powered by belts and wheels driven by an electric motor. I guess in the old days a steam engine was at the heart of the system. (As is still the case at Brauerei Schmitt at Singen in Thüringen.)

Some brewers ferment their beer in cellars cut into the rock under the castle. Unfortunately, my host doesn't have the keys for these doors. I'm sort of surprised. He seems to have the keys to everywhere else.

The key for the castle's front door is suitably massive and rusty iron affair. This is exciting. Unlocking a castle.

Having already heard somerthing of the castle's history, I know it won't be stuffed with armour, swords and four-poster beds. It lay derelict for centuries after being burned by the Swedes during the Thirty Years War. In the 1930's a German diplomat bought the ruin with the intention of restoring it and turning it into his retirement home. The jammy bastard. Getting a castle of his own.

Most of the rooms are bare. Just the few used for occasional
functions are furnished. When the family living in the castle left, they took most of the
contents with them. God knows where they'd find room for so much stuff.
The castle has dozens of rooms.

Since 2008 the castle had been owned by the town of Falkenberg. They plan opening it to the public, but need to install an emergency exit first. Bloody health and safety.

A lot of effort was put into renovating the building in an historically accurate way. You can see that up in the attics, where the solid craftsmanship of the rafters is plain to see. But what's that funny screeching noise outside? I notice when we get back down to the bottom of the rock. Falcons circle the castle. I suppose it is called Falkenberg, after all.

Back to the lucky owner of the castle, diplomat Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg. He was German ambassador in Moscow when operation Barbarossa kicked off. Being more connected to reality than Hitler, he'd tried to prevent the invasion. He wasn't quite so lucky after all. Implicated in the 1944 plot to kill Hitler, he was executed. He never got to retire to his dream castle.

That's the way to start. Straight into the heart of darkness of Germany's beer Urwald. Only pausing to pick up a couple of bottles of beer and some impulse schnapps on the way. Just to make the train journey go that bit quicker. Medicinal, really.

Falkenberg isn't just exceptional because it's one of the handful of towns in the Oberpfalz that retains its communal brewhouse. Nor only because of the three Zoigl Stube that sell beer brewed in that brewhouse. There's an amazing castle. One of the most impressive I've seen. And I've seen a lot of castles. It's stuck on a huge rock, right in the middle of town. (It is technically a town, depite only being home to 750 souls.) At its foot is that brewhouse.

I was surprised to learn that all the Zogl Stube had opened in the last few years. Where I headed that first evening, hasn't been open two years yet. I'd never have guessed.

People go on about family businesses. In many, a family may own, but not actively participate in, the business. Zoigl Stube aren't like that. They're proper family businesses. Two or three generations divide the work. Family members, proud of their beer and their traditions, are happy to pause at your table and chat. Friendly, relaxed, domestic almost. It's hard to think of a better place to while away a few hours than a Zoigl Stube. They're dirt cheap, too. Pay more than 1.70 euros for a half litre and you're being robbed.

There's only one beer. But that doesn't worry me a bit. One good one will do me. Which is what Schwoazhansl has. A hazy golden delight of a beer, that slips down as effortlessly as the sun behind the garden's trees. This is exactly what I've dreamt about the last few months. Me, a defenceless beer or two, a few lumps of pork and a mountain of rest.

No music, no TV, no drooling drunks nor obnoxous nerds. Just calm and simple pleasure. No, something even greater than pleasure: delight.

Time for part two of my series on Fuller's beers during WW I. And yes, it is their Pale Ales. All three of them.

Funnily enough, Fullers started the war with only two, PA and one of my favourite obsessions, AK. As you can see, there was quite a gap in gravity between the two, with PA at 1054º and AK at 1044º. In the late 19th century they had made four Pale Ales. In descending order of strength IPA, XK, AK and KA. Sometime between 1902 and 1910 IPA was renamed PA and XK and KA were phased out.

At the outbreak of war, AK was the lowest-gravity beer Fullers brewed, 5 points lower than X Ale and 1 lower than Porter. As with X Ale a few points were knocked off the gravity in the early war years, but the biggest changes were in April 1917 and April 1918. First reducing the gravity to around 1036º and then to 1026º. After April 1917, its gravity was pretty much identical to X Ale, even though before the war it had been lower. By 1920 both X Ale and AK were around 1030.

In a similar way to the introduction of XX Ale, in 1919 a slightly stronger Pale Ale called XK was introduced. And while AK remained around 1030º, XK had risen to the dizzying height of 1037º by 1920. AK limped along through the 1920's and 1930's, being brewed in quantities so small that you wonder why they bothered. Sometimes it was as little as two barrels. Too small for any of the normal fermenters as it was fermented in puncheons. It disappeared for good early in WW II (unless I can persuade Fullers to brew it as a Past Masters beer).

PA came through the war almost unscathed. It was over 1050º right up until April 1918. No mean feat, that. What it looks as if they did was to drive down the gravity of AK as far as possible so that they could keep up the strength of PA. In 1918 the average gravity of all beer produced in a brewery had to average no more than 1030º. To be able to brew PA in the high 1030's there had to be a considerable amount of beer with a gravity well below 1030º. Even in early 1919, it was still around 1039º - a very respectable strength for that time. And by the end of the year it was back up to its pre-war strength.

Now let's look at the recipe. I won't say recipes, because all of the Pale Ales were parti-gyled together. The flaked maize disappeared, too. The pre-war recipe was pretty typical: pale malt, sugar and flaked maize. If you've been paying attention you'll remember that crystal malt was rarely found in a Pale Ale before WW I. Fullers first used it in theirs some time between 1962 and 1968.

As with X Ale, there was a big change in the recipe in 1917, presumably as a result of difficulties in obtaining ingredients. For a while they were all malt, except for the primings. In 1920, the same main ingredients were being used as pre-war, but in different proportions. Pale malt remained at 78% to 80%, but the amount of flaked maize had more than doubled at the expense of No. 2 invert sugar and glucose.

Fullers were big fans of glucose. Between the wars all their beers except Porter and Stout contained it. Of course, that includes OBE. Which is how come I got to taste glucose. They'd bought some in for the Past Masters brew of OBE. It's a very different beast to invert sugar. While No. 2 and No. 3 invert have lots of dark fruit flavours glucose is just, well, sugary. Straight sweetness without much anything else.